The Art of Conversation by Tabish Khair

Tabish Khair

On 28 November 2015, I had a reading and
panel discussion at Médiathèque André Malraux, a library and media centre in
Strasbourg, the main city of the Alsace region of France, adjoining Germany, traditionally
one of the Christmas capitals of the continent and currently the site of the
European Parliament. As I was told that my hotel was just a 20 minute walk fromMédiathèque André Malraux – refreshed and
armed with a map – I declined the transport offered and decided to walk to the
venue. It had been raining earlier, but now cotton-wool wisps of cloud floated
in a washed blue sky. The sun was out again. As I strolled, I couldn’t help
noticing that there were fewer pedestrians and cyclists than I recalled from
earlier visits to other French towns. This surprised me, because towns in
France – or Spain or Italy – have a more vibrant culture of going out than in
the North, where I have lived for close to two decades now.

After
my event, my French publisher and the two hosts took me out to dinner in a
Tunisian restaurant. As we walked to the restaurant, the earlier feeling came
back to me – there were too few people on the streets. It looked more like a
town in northern Europe than in southern Europe. Was it because Strasbourg is
on the northern side of France? I put the question to my hosts, even though I
suspected I knew the answer. No, my hosts replied, confirming my suspicion, it
is because of the ISIS-attacks in Paris. People are not eating out or going out
in the evenings as often as they were, I was told. Some are afraid; many are
merely sad.

We
walked on to the Tunisian restaurant, where my hosts were known and the Tunisian
waiters kept coming to our table to say hello. Half the tables of the small
restaurant were occupied. When we left two hours later, I saw a long table on
one side of the restaurant that seemed to contain at least three generations –
maybe four – of a French family. There was a bearded grandfather, who bore a
striking resemblance to a white-haired Karl Marx, at one end, teenagers at
another end, and family members of various ages in between. They were engrossed
in conversation, as were my hosts and publishers, now taking their time bidding
goodbye to the owner/cook and two waiters.

*
* *

When I was younger, I read Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian with a large
degree of agreement. I still believe in the need for the articulation and
acceptance of difference that the book championed. And yet, with the years, I
have come to wonder if the only paradigm available to us is that of the
argument, with its possibility of a negotiated settlement that is, at best, a
tactical compromise on all sides. How about another paradigm? How about the
paradigm of the conversation?

The argument, and
any negotiated agreement that it may lead to, is based on a resistance to the
other. The conversation, on the other hand, suggests openness to the other. In
a conversation, you need not agree, but you have agreed not to argue in such a
way that the conversation breaks. You have agreed to step into the other
person’s shoes, and the other person has agreed to step into yours. A degree of
civility is presumed in the conversation. The agreement you reach at the end of
a conversation is neither tactical, nor begrudging. It enfolds all the parties
equally: the conversation goes on. As the great 19th century Delhi
poet, Ghalib put it in a lighter, amorous context, “Har ek baat par kahte ho tum
ki tu kya hai / Tumhi kaho yeh andaaz-e-guftagu kya hai.” [On every issue you
say, ‘You’re nothing in my estimation,’ / Tell me truly, is this a style of
conversation?] What he suggests is that even in a domestic or amorous setting,
the dismissive argument – ‘tu kya hai’ – impedes any true conversation.

What the ISIS
terrorists did in Paris – what Islamic fundamentalists do every day when they
insist on their particular interpretation of Islam – is deny the possibility of
conversation. Many Hindutva supporters do something similar, as do some extreme
leftists. Perhaps the very nature of the Internet impedes the art of
conversation too. A conversation assumes a setting, the civility of sitting
down and listening, waiting for your turn to speak, or considering the other
person’s position and not dismissing it outright (tu kya hai), maintaining a
civil space of free enunciation, no matter what the differences. The Internet
with its isolated networking makes it easier to argue than to converse because
the civil space demanded for conversation is not fully available when you face only
a computer screen. I think we are losing
the art of conversation, an art that was never too fully developed in some
societies in any case. Apolitical as this may sound, one of the solutions to
many of our political problems is exactly this – we need to cultivate the art
of conversation, domestically, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.

I increasingly see
conversation as the backbone of civilisation. I use civilisation in a large
sense: many hunting-gathering tribes, for instance, had elaborate rituals of
conversation. The ‘pow-wow’ of Indian American tribes is the one that has
seeped – in caricatured form – into popular global culture, but there were
similar traditions among the Santhals in India, the Maoris in New Zealand, the
Australian aborigines, and many other peoples. These traditions were spatially
and temporally limited: they usually frayed when faced with rapid change across
time or a totally different cultural context.

But there are more
culturally complex examples too. It is customary – and not incorrect – to consider
a degree of bullying and xenophobia to be at the core of all modern nations.
And yet, one can argue that the extent to which a nation succeeds depends on
its ability to cultivate and sustain a national conversation – across tribal,
ethnic, linguistic and other divides. This, inevitably, cannot be done on the
basis on the bullying of one or more dominant segment of the nation. What one
needs is not an argument about beef, pork, chicken and cabbage, but a
conversation – in which everyone can speak freely and with consideration. The
conversation is always a public unitary act which works only when personal
differences are fully accepted. I would argue that many European nations have
managed to do this better than almost all Third World countries, and even frayed
rich nations like United States. Europe has managed something else at a larger
level. At its best, despite the xenophobes, Europe has created space for a
larger European conversation. European Christian sects do not fight each other
despite major doctrinal differences – a process that is the result of a
tentative conversation first attempted, after centuries of conflict, in the 17th
century. Similarly, European nations – after the Second World War – have
managed not only to avoid fighting one another but also to avoid arguing in
ways that lead to the end of the conversation.

*
* *

Later that night, as I left my hotel room
for a stroll around the centre of Strasbourg, I thought of this. Some cafes
were still open. I could see couples or groups, sitting over their glasses and
plates, talking. I thought of other places in the world where this is not
possible – or at least subject to greater pressures. I was sure there would not
be similar groups in Syria or Iraq. I doubt that a real conversation could take
place even in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, for only some things can be
said there. I even thought of places in India or Bangladesh where some
conversations could be easily frayed and dissolve into shouting. I thought of the
Internet, with its legions of abusive trolls.

I
was grateful to this space of Strasbourg where conversation was still possible.
Conversation depends on civility, not capital or power, and it is from civility
that any civilisation grows. The personal act of conversation – a free, courteous
exchange – is the most politically enabling action you can perform or demand.

This
is something that fundamentalists of all ilk cannot see. They are deafened by
their anger, hatred, conviction, ideology, book. They can only shout, not even
really talk, because they are afraid to listen. They cannot converse, and they
do not want us to converse. Light a candle against this trend now. Shut your
laptop, go to a café or dhabba with friends, address a friendly stranger,
listen, talk, listen. Learn to have a family dinner – as the French very often
do even today – without the TV on. Don’t let arguments end your conversations: say,
with Ghalib, in that case, ‘Tumhi kaho yeh andaaz-e-guftagu kya hai?’